A topic for those of us that are enamored with the goings on of pollinators and beneficial plants and insects.
Whether it be bees, birds, wasps, beetles, bugs, spiders…
Whether it be flowers or habitats… all are welcome. Ideas/thoughts/questions and advice are all helpful.
Spring 2025 Orchard Chronicle.
As i sat on my porch and gazed onto my growing things, birds, butterflies and spring emerging… Each day i noticed that the honeybees kept getting louder and louder and more active on my porch! I noticed them very interested in a couple of my tables (the holes for screws), then more and more interested in my bamboo stakes that i cannot for the life of me throw away…that I have scattered here and there and yonder. I watched them go in and out of those old bamboo stakes… then AHA!.. these arent honeybees are they?
So i promptly began to give them what they were on my porch for…holes!… the holes are busy… in and outs…to and fro. Arguments are had over which hole belongs to whom!
I have noticed a couple of very dark black ones and maybe a blue one but they are elusive… some carrying dirt, some laden with pollen. Some doing other things.
I have one store bought one and a couple of my homemade ones to get started… (notice the capped holes)…
This is not ideal… but a beginning. And i am letting nature not nurture start this thing.
I am fairly confident that all the nurseries that sent me things with bamboo stakes from all over the US probably provided me with eggs. My strange thought process of ‘i might use those stakes for something else later’ probably allowed this to happen in the first place.
I have no doubt that the carpenter bees and woodpecker holes and various other holes will become preferred to them going on…but for now they seem to be having the time of their lives in these.
The situation is quite different in southern California. Hives of feral european honey bees are so common they are a nuisance. Individuals selling bee hive kits under the banner of “save the bees” are part of the problem. There are thriving bee removal companies here that export hives to agricultural regions in other parts of the country.
The native bees and other pollinators (including beetles) are what need more support from property owners. We try to help them by growing local native plants. It is interesting to watch the cycles between the plants and insects. One example is a local evergreen bladderpod. There is a small moth that comes around in summer and devours most of the leaves. Soon afterwards the plant responds with a growth spurt and puts on a show.
I need to make a bee hotel as well. Past couple of autumns I have just left up stalks of plants, hoping they will use them. No telling if they have because I feel like I am in a bee desert. I have only seen two honey bees here and it’s going on my third season.
I’m upping the ante and doubling down on wildflowers and interplanting of different types of flowers in my vegetable garden and all over my property.
I’ve thought about seed bombing around the neighborhood…
I am… but they are kind of demanding it. As i was installing them there were bees going into them as i screwed them in… i cant fault what they want.
FYI these were all bought at ALDI for $5 each… except for the taller skinny ones which were at Lowes for $10. They have little to no interest so far in the more expensive ones… they really want the cheapos.
I guess whatever eggs are laid will multiply what i have now into more then it will keep growing. I plan on drilling some old firewood for next springs egg layers and males… this is just the jumping off point.
I think 3/8 is a solid choice… but wouldnt hurt to go with some 5/16 as other choices… while you are at it 1/2 i think is what carpenter bee holes are and some folks have mentioned that some masons prefer old carpenter bee holes. Wouldnt be a bad idea to add some other small holes either in case some beneficial others might find refuge. So my plan is to just add a bunch of different sizes/choices in my logs/firewood and some other things… one size doesnt always fit all i dont think.
I think if you want to have some extra fun you could buy some parchment paper and roll it onto a pencil and make ‘tubes’… then hatch them out in the spring.
Hole depth is probably more important… i think there will be more eggs in a 6 inch hole than a 3 inch hole.
I dug a feral butterfly bush Friday… It was in some very old concrete and gravel… i nearly broke a shovel digging it out. WOW what an amazing thing to live in such a hellish place. I saw no sign of life or any kind of thing that looked like soil. I bought 2 more butterfly bushes at the farmers market yesterday and 2 more bee balms. I have Jacob’s Cline going and i dig the suckers every year and spreat them. Super amazing thing to have in places that you never want to mow again. Jacobs Cline takes a few years to spread but once it does its a showstopper. I think the stalks are hollow too and things nest in there… i need to pay more attention to that. Hummingbirds and bees love them. I am on year 3 of Bergamot… its also awesome for bees and butterflies and hummingbirds… i think seed birds eat all the seeds from the bee balms too. Will post pics once they bloom in a few months.
We have lots of butterfly host plants in addition to pollination patches to bring in a bunch of different butterfly species. I have seen 8 different butterfly caterpillars and 1 moth caterpillar (that isn’t a nuisance) hosting on our plants. We have the host plant for 4 or 5 other species, but those ones are usually marginal in our area at nest. That isn’t counting that countless little Hairstreaks and Cassia Blues that host on grasses and small weeds.
Naturally, having a bunch of flowering plants means we have lots of bees too. I just don’t encourage them to nest anywhere. The blueberry farmer about a half mile away has a few hives on his property and there is also a bumblebee colony somewhere nearby (and they stick around all winter long). I also have seen a few orchid bees flying around, maybe one day I can get one of them to pollinate my vanilla orchids. We have lots of wasps that love the flowers too, but I don’t know anything about different wasp species.
Apparently butterfly bushes don’t like water I’ve been reading it all night on how to take care of them.
I have a cart that’s too dam expensive of reblooming lilacs, butterfly bushes, hydrangeas and a few petunias…
Right now, my driveway is a total mess and i just keep accumulating more plants… slowly getting into flowers for the bees because i have 3 bumblebees now instead of 2!!! One has been looking for a home around the house and i hope they found a good one. I feel bad because the woods look like a desert to me if i were a pollinator. So i went out and bought some lavender plants and a few other things i thought were pretty.
I have a vision of bordering a 4ft area around my home with flowers and flowering shrubs. Also been envisioning surrounding my garden area with a ton of pollinator favorites as well.
I bought well over 100 lily bulbs but then i got an email that the builders are willing to put in a French drain for free and that’s the day i found the morels as well… planning on putting them on the south side of my home with full sun.
I looked over into my not yet cleared area and realized the deer had cleared all of it and that’s why they’ve moved to my plants in the back. My area is next to some wetlands in the back so I’ve been considering doing a short fence for that area so they can keep coming by for food. They don’t seem to like the strawberries i give them but love the strawberry leaves…
Yes, love this! My lot was decimated by construction in a neighborhood of houses with mainly grass, boxwoods and the dreaded and utterly useless crape Myrtles. By just summer #2 of planting a diverse array natives blooming early summer through late fall, the property was humming alive! We’ve started buying insect books to work on identification because we will see 8 different kinds of bees/bugs over a plant at once. If you don’t know where to start, native milkweed is an excellent start as long as you don’t live in a place monarchs overwinter. A 6x2 patch of swamp milkweed had 50 caterpillars last year! We gave them to my kids school to care for watch and release and nurtured a few indoors ourselves. Totally magical. Working on adding other lesser known butterfly host this year. I’m strongly of the mindset that if you plant it, they will come.
Also to note- we get SO many carpenter bees in spring. They’re a little territorial. Freaks my husband out, but they aren’t destroying anything. They LOVE monarda. The hoards of bees on our tiny property have no interest in us or the wood, they just want the flowers, so the kids can safely meander around. No one has ever been stung.
Butterfly bushes are not native species and because of that only a few pollinators get attracted mostly butterflies are the only ones attracted by this species!
But If you really want to help and support pollinators of ALL species! I would suggest getting a False Indigo Bush (Amorpha fruticosa). This is a show stopper!!! And the colors of the flower clusters are beautiful and so colorful!
I also would suggest a Nepeta! , Mountain Ment (Pycnanthemum muticum) you wouldn’t believe all the pollinators visiting this plant!
I’ve been reading it all night on how to take care of them.
